Service...what does that mean? If you would have asked me over a year ago, I'm sure my answer would be very different than it is now. When I entered BVS, I pictured a project in which I would get dirty and sweaty and work my brain and body like it had never been worked before. I would be met with incredible challenges, see things out of my comfort zone, and work with people who were going through some really hard times. I chose to go to the Church of the Brethren (COB) Washington Office–a project that seems pretty cushy to most. The sweatiest I got was walking from building to building on a hot summer day. As I talked to my friends who did hospice work, staffed the Catholic Worker Houses and soup kitchens, and worked at the Mexico/US border, I felt like a wimp. My work was nothing compared to theirs. I was cheating BVS and I was cheating myself.

My next project was going to be different. I was going to the Shenandoah District to share my ideas of peace and justice by traveling to congregations and youth groups. I would be on the road, working with people and be faced with many challenges. In reality, I have become better acquainted with books, paper, and a computer–all that I felt guilty about in the Washington Office. Where was the sweat and the dirt?

I had an epiphany while reading a children's story. It was about a little cricket who so desperately wanted to be a butterfly. Butterflies were wonderful and beautiful while crickets were ugly and good for nothing. By the end of the story, the spider helped the cricket see how beautiful and gifted he was and how he shared his gift of music with the spider while she practiced her own gift ("spinning and waiting, waiting and spinning"). During that moment a butterfly flew over, wishing she could be a cricket.

I was spending too much time wanting to be a butterfly and forgetting about the value of my own experience. My dirt and sweat was different from the dirt and sweat I had expected.

The COB Washington Office and the Shenandoah District Office are full of challenges. I had to learn political lingo and the loopholes of the system, and the rarity of seeing fruits of my work. I am now struggling to find my voice and plant seeds to root a new project.

I have been out of my comfort zone plenty: going to political dinners and meetings without really knowing the protocol, living in a city with extreme power and poverty, defending an action I have challenged others to take, examining the Bible in a way I never have before, giving a sermon, and learning to drive a standard transmission! I also have learned that it doesn't take meeting a person who has seen the toughest of times to learn something. Learning happens when you allow yourself to be vulnerable to another human being. I have met and will continue to meet people who have changed my life in BVS and have touched others as well.

No, I am not faced with many of the challenges as my co-BVSers. Nor are they faced with mine. That is why we share our experiences and why I am so thankful for all I have learned.